What’s more important, the act or its effects? Jaq Phule argues that if “the road to hell is paved with good intentions” then can it not also be true that “the road to heaven is paved with not-so-good intentions?” Well, maybe not, but in a roundabout way it can be true sometimes.
Which, on the day after the anniversary of the day the King left the building, brings us all to this picture of a Great American:
Well, Elvis is okay if you like rockabilly, but actually Jaq was talking about Tricky Dick.
You see, Dickie taught America exactly how much one should trust a unitary executive. How much to trust a leader, especially one thrust so high into power. Does a leader claim that more power and control is necessary to get through your current crisis? Does a leader ask you to ask yourself what you can do to help his institution? Does that leader pretend that he does not benefit from your sacrifice? Bollocks to that leader!
Nixon was great, not because of anything he did, but because he got caught. His actions skewered public perception of the office of the President, and left people questioning their “leadership” and demanding accountability and limits to the power of government. Without Watergate, would public power ever have reached the heights necessary to pull the troops home from Vietnam? Or would we have had our “war to last a generation” a generation earlier?
Unfortunately, instead of accountability, they eventually got Ronald Wilson Friggin’ Reagan. Reagan has a great many fans these days, who claim that Reagan performed all kinds of miracles and signs, from singlehandedly destroying the Soviet Union to restoring respectability to astrology. Whether or not any of this wonderment is true (it’s mainly not) does not change the fact that Reagan committed a very hard to forgive crime:
For Ronald Reagan restored faith in government. And what, pray tell, has government done with that faith? Who can you really blame for our current mess other than the people who trusted the politicians who actually craved that kind of corrupting power, enough to elect them?
There’s an old saying in Tennessee — Jaq knows it’s in Texas, probably in Tennessee — that says, fool Jaq once, shame on — shame on you. Fool Jaq — you can’t get fooled again. Or so we shouldn’t. We don’t need another Nixon. We have so much to more learn from G.W. Bush, that Jaq will likely also rate him as a Great Man, long after he safely fades from public view. So much to learn in fact, that we likely won’t survive another one like him — assuming we survive this one. May God protect us from Presidents who are also Great Men.
